Hi Wendy...yes it began with Katrina but then we were hit again 3 weeks later by Rita and since then there's been Eduard, Gustav and Ike back in Sept. of '08...the unique aspect I guess is that I went to work immediately with my German Shepherds doing search & rescue/recovery, so I really was all over the city and saw many personal tragedies unfold but then I also worked with tons of families doing pro-bono work trying to help them recover insurance funds and other forms of financial help through various programs that were designed to aid the victims of these storms and that's when I discovered that the funds that were allocated by Congress to fund largest housing recovery effort in U.S. history never reached those that they were intended for and that so desperately needed them, I was working in conjuction with Congressman, Mayors and Senators and that gave me access to the actual numbers and I was shocked to see the massive political corruption going on...at all levels of government...and these storms are hitting us back-to-back still, I've lost everything 3 times, 3 house in 3 years and my restaurant....I'm properly insured, although that doesn't cover all of the out-of-pocket expenses, it doesn't even come close but it just kills me to see those in need not getting help. There are several levels to this story, these disasters have caused a breakdown in our school systems, medical facilities, over 1 million homes lost, thousands of businesses as well, not to mention thousands of lives and our college students can't get the student financial aid that they need because the campuses were destroyed and the temporary facilities don't qualify under the federal student-aid program, the list goes on and on and the scary thing is that the rest of the country seems to be oblivious to the fact that over 80% of the revenue from the oil and gas refineries off of our coast go to entire country and if we don't rebuild the Gulf Coast, imagine the financial loss to the entire country....billions of dollars each year and with the economy already on such shaky ground, we as a country cannot afford to lose that revenue....there is just so much to it...and those that aren't properly insured are being denied help from FEMA, right now the rejection rate is 95% of all applications are being denied.....every American pays into this program, whether they realize that or not and it's a shame that cannot access relief funds when they so desperately need them.....and many families have been wiped out several times in the last 4 years, those on a fixed income are really in a bind....it seems to be the never ending story and I hope that I can shed some light on some of this because a lot of what happened was censored in the media by our government and once the rest of the country gets a full understanding about how this affects them as well, maybe we can bring about some change, besides if the governments inadequate response to a disaster can happen here, it can happen anywhere and it's apparent that our government is not prepared to handle a disaster...
